What you experience in the CLA250 is a combination of turbo lag and an electronic throttle optimizing for low fuel consumption. There should be an option where you can engage sport mode to increase the throttle response and also prevent the gearbox from selecting a high gear to keep revs low.

I drive a car with the VW EA888 2.0 (230BHP@4000RPM, 370lb-ft@1600RPM) and it is possible to have near immediate throttle response and pull provided you're familiar with the gear ratios and power curve of the car. However, it's also a manual, so I don't have the disadvantage of being caught out in the wrong gear.

I'll have to give it a try in sport mode this afternoon and see how much better it is. "Near immediate" sounds an awful lot like "near pregnant" though.

You'll find that it will cause the car to hold gears almost up to redline, which isn't great in traffic or when cruising. Whenever I drive an automatic, I ALWAYS use the paddle shifters and put the gearbox into manual mode so I have complete control over gearing.

That's one of the really really great things about electric cars: they are always ready to go, without having to control the gearbox.

Now, there's a tiny percentage of the population that enjoys paddle shifters, and even I do sometimes, but if we had usage tracking on them I would bet that fewer than 10% of drivers use paddle shifters for more than 5 times in the lifetime of the car, and that cars with paddle shifters are in automatic transmission mode 99.9% of miles driven.

So though some people will miss the gearbox, far far far more will rejoice in having a car that is always at maximum performance without messing with things.

I find automatics in 'D' will try to keep themselves in too high of a gear (practically idling around, presumably to save fuel) so a downshift is needed to accelerate

'S' behaves more like a human driving a manual - I assume the MPG and emissions testing is done in 'D'

I've tried the paddle shifters but they work poorly. Half the time it doesn't even register them. I'll be revving high, press the + paddle, and nothing changes.

Edit: so, I went to try sport mode and... turns out I've been driving around in sport mode all weekend already. Tried out "comfort" mode just to compare and couldn't see any difference. I'm sure a better driver could, but both are far away from instant response.

I've also got a Mercedes loan car, after a truck ripped the front off my Model X 90D.

The Mercedes S 350 is so much more sluggish than either my Model X or my Renault Zoe. Put foot down, wait half a second, and make a ridiculous noise in the process. I have to use the brakes way more often because of the lack of regen, too.

I am utterly convinced after 4 years of EV driving that 90% of drivers would switch to EVs for life, if they got to try one for a few weeks.

Driving the Merc feels like using an HTC Vario compared to an iPhone.

That's too bad. I thought maybe this was just a consequence of He CLA being a relatively low-end Mercedes.

I have a Mercedes C300, owned a CLA 45 AMG, and have driven a Tesla Model S for about 50 miles once. I loved my CLA, but I traded it for a C300 and made money off the deal (CLA AMGs are in hot demand).

The CLA 45 had a great engine but suffered from a conservative transmission shifting algorithm. Sport mode was fine but comfort mode was designed for "A to B" driving at low fuel consumption. It also has responsiveness problems from full stop - this wasn't turbo lag per se, as if you don't notice it in launch mode. Once you got going, it was very fast.

The Tesla interior is nearly identical to a Mercedes-Benz interior (they use many of the same parts), with the exception of the large tablet screen on the Tesla. It feels more like the low-end CLA interior than the wood grain C-class which feels more like the S-class. The Model S backseat is cramped compared to the Mercedes, it is more like the BMW 3-Series in terms of leg room. Practically speaking I would go with a Model X.

That said, to me while the throttle response of the Tesla was truly amazing, the regenerative slowdown effect was.. weird. I really didn't like it. Given the price difference between the C-Series and Model S ($55k vs 95k in Canada, and $130k or More for a model X), I think the C-class will continue to win out except for those with significantly more income. Tesla sells a better car, but not 2x better. Mercedes has time to catch up with its own EV.

The price difference certainly makes it a bit unreasonable to compare the CLA and the Model S. But the Model 3 is a different story. The 3 should drive very similarly to the non-performance non-AWD Ss (like mine), and the price is similar to the CLA.

The parts similarity weirded me out a bit. It was strange having the exact same gear shifter and turn signal lever in a completely different car. But both companies seem to have good taste in that respect.

As far as the regen, I personally really like it, and you might too once you got used to it. It's really nice to only use one pedal for most driving. However, if it really is not to your taste, you can turn it down in the settings. The result is much like an automatic car, where you only get very mild braking when you release the accelerator. Of course, you sacrifice some efficiency and brake life when you do this.

> this Mercedes feels like the accelerator is hooked up to the engine through the postal service

I feel a similar difference between an automatic and a manual transmission car.

I was driving a Cupra 290 on the Nurburgring last week and I kept getting caught out by the kick-down feature on the DSG gearbox - even in Cupra (sport) mode.

For example, I'd be exiting Breidscheid and the car would be in 4th instead of 3rd. Then there is then a good half second waiting for the DSG to downshift before power is available. In which time, I've just been overtaken by someone with a manual gearbox...

It's really tough to beat the brain's mental timing once you've got a good feel for exactly when you should engage the accelerator once you've released the clutch.

I've only driven a car with a DSG like that once, and I did find the timing of the shift a little disconcerting compared to that of releasing the clutch in time with the accelerator.

It was fast, and undoubtedly faster than I could double clutch with a manual clutch, but it still felt slow.

Similar price? CLA250 is 2.5 times cheaper than P85. It is also 2.5 seconds slower going 0-60. Not really sure where are you getting your data from...

Where did you get "P85" from? My Model S is an 85, no P, with a published 0-60 of about 5.6 seconds. "Similar price" refers to the Model 3, not any Model S. The Model 3 starts at $35,000, the CLA250 starts at $32,700, that's pretty similar to me.

Would it trouble you to read the comment you're replying to, or at least drop the attitude if you won't?

Sorry, did not realize you have S85, which is still 1.5 seconds faster.

Your claim that Model 3 will run like S have no grounds. All you can honesty do is to compare that Benz to your S85.

The more I get into cars the more I find 0-60 to be a poor metric for performance because it comes down to all wheel drive, traction (good OEM tires are a must) and short gearing. Power is important, but less so than the others. For evidence of this compare the extra long geared GT4 with the Carrera S, both of which have the same 3.8 flat-6 and more or less the same power output.

What most people want to compare (but don't know it) are torque curves and power bands. I.e. how does the engine make its power and where is it in the rev range. We know that EVs provide constant torque, hence max power is available at all times (provided there is sufficient traction). When it comes to ICEs the situation much more complex. NAs tend to make all their power at the top of the rev range and torque peaks at around 3,000/4,000RPM. Turbo engines tend to make their power around 1,000RPM below redline and provide peak torque between 1600/3000RPM (the min can be higher for lower-displacement engines or engines with big turbos). However, off-boost, there is a noticeable absence of power, but this diminishes as displacement increases.

I find it's these figures that need to be compared as the are much more indicative about acceleration in gear, smoothness and where the engine and gearing needs to be to make power.

1.5 seconds faster than what? I compared 0-60 times between the S and the 3. The Model 3's published 0-60 is 5.1 or 5.6 seconds depending on whether you look at the base model or the long-range model.

I'm quite confident that the Model 3 drives like my Model S. Acceleration is clearly similar, zero-lag is pretty much an inherent property of the EV drivetrain, and there's no reason to suspect otherwise.